2006 Merryvale Vineyards Carneros Pinot Noir

Mission Codename: From Merryvale, with love

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Return to Operative favorite, Merryvale, this time to recover a cache of their fabled Carneros Pinot Noir

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: Merryvale Vineyards

Wine Subject: 2006 Carneros Pinot Noir

Winemakers: Sean Foster and Larry Cherubino

Backgrounder: Some of our favorite California Pinot Noir comes from the Carneros viticultural area, a winegrowing region which straddles the Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley. The cool Carneros region provides ideal growing conditions for Pinot Noir and Pinot thrives here. Merryvale is a Wine Spies favorite and we are proud to bring you today’s very special limited-production wine. Read Agent Red’s tasting notes and mission report to learn more about this fantastic Pinot Noir.

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Sparkling clear ruby red, almost pomegranate in color, with beautiful clarity and sparkling burgundy-colored edges with tightly-packed, stubby legs that take forever to appear

Smell – Classic Carneros, with aromatic black cherry, gunpowder, and black currant with soft forest floor, strawberry, natural vanilla bean and softest cocoa

Feel – Ultra-light, cool and speedy-round at very first, then quickly grippy and slightly tight, crisp with medium supple tannins

Taste – Delicious and brightly tart, then sweet with flinty black cherry, sweet black currant, smoky cranberry and Oolong tea with a hint of black pepper

Finish – Ultra-long, starts sweet, then goes tart and back to sweet with black tea flavors that linger as the fruit flavors tail off slowly

Conclusion – A superb example of Pinot Noir! There is a reason that the Carneros region is known for Pinot and this wine demonstrates why. Merryvale has extracted the best that this region has to offer. If you have never had the pleasure to taste a true Carneros Pinot Noir, I wholeheartedly recommend this fine selection. The wine has a deeply aromatic nose and brightly balanced flavors that make the wine a super stand-alone, but also make it very food-friendly. Oh, and the intriguing mouthfeel makes it a pleasure to imbibe, as well.

Mission Report:

[What follows is my original mission report, in which I first infiltrated Merryvale]

Merryvale hosts their own ‘Wine Component Tasting’ seminar every Saturday & Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. The fourth weekend of every month is Merryvale’s ‘Food & Wine Pairing’ seminar.

These events provided me with the perfect opportunity for some close surveillance of this respected winery. I wasted no time and signed up for both, which actually proved to be not only deeply informative from a Wine Spies intel-gathering perspective, but also from a wine drinker’s perspective. The two events were also great fun and the Merryvale winery is amazing!

The Wine Spies strive to have a low impact on the environment, but Merryvale takes this sort of responsibility to an extreme. Wherever possible, The Wine Spies use earth-friendly materials such as pulp wine shippers and recycled packing materials. We drive hybrid spy cars, keep office lights dimmed or turned off during the day and we recycle relentlessly. Merryvale does all of these things – and way more.

On arrival at the Merryvale Vineyards facility, the first thing that I noticed were the seemingly acres of solar panels covering the rooftop of their 60,000 foot building.

Once inside for the morning component tasting, I learned that Merryvale completed the installation of its 277kW solar electric system in 1996, before being green was chic.

The solar array generates enough clean electricity each day to power nearly 80 homes and will spare the air nearly 473 tons of harmful greenhouse gases annually. Over the next 30 years, the air pollution saved will be equivalent to driving over 32 million miles.

The winery’s solar system will provide 90-100% of the winery’s electricity needs on an annual basis for the company’s 60,000 square foot building.

Merryvale’s foremost reason for installing the array is to utilize green energy. This is an effort that we applaud and one that we are happy to be seeing at more and more wineries these days.

The component tasting and the pairing seminar were both exceptional and I recommend these for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of wine. While the winery and the classes were great, far more impressive are Merryvale’s incredible wines.

Winery Location:

The Merryvale Vineyards winery can be seen in this satellite photo.